That was an extraordinary frog! You should have seen
nurse's start when Olly hid himself in the passage and sent the frog
hopping and squeaking through the open door of the night nursery, where
nurse was sitting sewing; and as for cook, when the creature came
flopping over her kitchen floor she very nearly spoilt the hash she was
making for dinner by dropping a whole pepper-box into the middle of it!
There was no end to the fun to be got out of froggy, and Olly amused
himself with it the whole of the morning, while Milly went through long
stories with her dolls upstairs, helped every now and then by Aunt Emma,
who sat knitting and talking to mother.
At dinner the children had to sit quiet while Mr. and Mrs. Norton and
Aunt Emma talked. Father and mother had been almost as much cheered up
by Aunt Emma's coming as the children themselves, and now the
dinner-table was lively with pleasant talk; talk about books, and talk
about pictures, and talk about foreign places, and talk about the
mountains and the people living near Ravensnest, many of whom mother had
known when she was a little girl. Milly, who was old enough to listen,
could only understand a little bit here and there; but there was always
Aunt Emma's friendly gentle face to look at, and her soft old hand in
its black mitten, to slip her own little fingers into; while Olly was so
taken up with the prospects of the black-currant pudding which he had
seen cook making in the morning, and the delight of it when it came,
that it seemed no trouble to him to sit still.
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